Snow report East Tyrol-North Carinthia, 01/30/2014

Snow condition

With the snow that's currently falling, you don't have to worry about the snow conditions any more... We drove around for a long time today to find a ski area that was open at all, and while there was already around 50 cm of fresh snow in the border area between South and East Tyrol this morning (in the valley at 1200m, mind you), it was still practically nothing compared to the side valleys. In Obertilliach there was about 100cm of fresh snow (also in the valley). At 1900m in Sexten I didn't catch the ground with telescopic poles extended to 145cm. As it snowed heavily all day and the snowfall even intensified in the afternoon (estimated 10-12cm/h at 1200m), it's now significantly more...

Snow quality

Unfortunately not so great. The snow is quite damp and rather dull. As the temperatures have obviously risen during the snowfall, the fresh snow further down is much softer and lighter than further up. The top 15-20cm are rather heavy, despite the really heavy layer of fresh snow, you don't sink in deeply when riding, so there are no face shots. Nevertheless, you break through the heavier layer of fresh snow from time to time and get stuck in the softer, very deep fresh snow... It's fun, but the amount of fresh snow doesn't really help.

Extremely critical. You only have to listen to the news... Also very critical for skiers, I've never seen anywhere near as many snow slabs and self-releases in the forest as today. Even in the forest, everything that's steep enough comes off, usually not all the fresh snow but just the top layer, but still bad. Above the tree line, you can't really imagine what's happening, especially as it was/is relatively windy.

Overall impression

The skiing was actually 3 stars, because it was quite ok, deduction for the really precarious avalanche situation. You can only ski where you get permanently stuck even with really fat skis. Maybe I'll post pictures later if I can manage it.